On Wednesday 15 November 2023, the motion proposed by the Scottish National Party (SNP) to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was defeated in the House of Commons, 293 to 125.
Despite mounting pressure in the Labour Party, Labour leader Keir Starmer also refused to back a ceasefire and instructed party members not to vote for the SNP motion.
Labour frontbenchers would have been at risk of losing their jobs if they voted for the Gaza ceasefire.
Instead, Starmer put forward Labour’s own amendment to give MPs a vote on the crisis in Gaza, calling for a “humanitarian pause” in the conflict between Israel and Hamas rather than a full “immediate ceasefire” as the SNP called for in its amendment.
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Labour’s amendment was also defeated but garnered 160 Labour votes.
Prior to the vote on the SNP’s motion, over 70 Labour party representatives openly defied Starmer by publicly supporting a ceasefire in Gaza.
In the vote, Starmer suffered a major rebellion as 56 Labour MPs voted for an immediate ceasefire.
10 of the Labour Party’s frontbenchers including eight shadow ministers such as Jess Phillips, Afzal Khan, and Yasmin Qureshi left their jobs over the vote.
MPs such as Stella Creasy and Jess Phillips stated that they were rebelling against party instruction as a “matter of principle” and to “better represent their constituents” respectively.
The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn responded by stating that it was “shameful that a majority of Tory and Labour MPs blocked calls for a ceasefire and have condoned the continued bombardment of Gaza.”
Scottish Labour has a different stance on the ceasefire, formally backing demands for a full ceasefire in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, widening the party’s divisions and disunity over the conflict.
Voters have responded by a wave of protest marches in major cities across the UK to exhibit support for Palestine and to encourage the UK parliament to change its formal stance and call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Outside parliament, demonstrations from pro- Palestinian supporters took place with chants of “ceasefire now” as the voting on the SNP’s motion occurred, while 300,000 protested in London that weekend with tens of thousands more elsewhere in the UK.
“Leader of the Opposition the Rt Hon Keir Starmer MP” by UK Parliament is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.